On route to Milford Sound, New Zealand, South Island, Queenstown

The road to Milford sound is a magnificent scenic highway that travels from the shores of lake Te Anau, across the mountains beyond, to emerge in the glacier carved splendour of Milford Sound, the focal point of Fiordland 🏞 National Park, a total trip of 242 Kms. 

We are off on the day tour to Milford Sound, on our waka (Maori expression for ‘mode of transportation’: 🚣‍♀️ or Coach) and within 45m we are into river country. On our left,  rocks on land to the left give telltale signs of an ancient river that would once have flowed across. The warm sun lazily smiles on the green land below. Green lush vegetation beholden soak it up gratefully. Cattle graze across the farmlands on both sides. Sheep 🐑 crouch down sauntering around in no particular direction. There seems all the time in the world and there appears no rush. Ahead,  two coaches lazily crisscross the country side as the third coach (ours) follow some safe distance behind.  A smooth rhythm is set as the bus eats up the kilometres ahead lazily  while gently country lyrics lull us to gentle slumber. The road signage are few and intermittent marking off road speed, cautioning a school ahead, occasionally signposting a hotel, or motel. Else otherwise, the road ahead, the sun ☀️ smiling resplendently below, rolling hills and green all around. Time almost standing still. Yellow gorse grow in wild abandon across the hillside, breaking around in a riot of colour, sometimes in sparsely clumps, and then more often across large tracts. Yellow and Green - the two awesome joyful colours of life so amazingly intertwining in an array of dazzling collage.  Eyes feast on the medley of colours brought up in shades of green and yellow. Up ahead, grey coloured gorse suddenly spurt up calling attention to itself. As I look straight ahead, multiple hills weave and interlock across each other: and then I realise that valley and hill are one: the latter create the former, giving it form, presence, grandeur. One unable to do without the other. This is a landscape presenting itself in the panoply of its beauty, hills, valley, farms, trees, bushes and all. Together it weaves the magic! 

Our lady coach driver occasionally alerts us about highlights of the land we are moving across: What diary, farming, activities are on. I learn that the focus is on diary to what used to be earlier sheep farming. From a ratio of 9:1, it’s now down to 5:1 ( sheep: people) giving way to Wales as the number 1 sheep rearing country.  The main type of sheep are merino and Romney, whose female usually give birth to twins and triplets. 

Then her voice fades off, and the gentle country music 🎶 steps in. On the road, one can see dead possum, considered to be a pest and nuisance, run over by passing cars. This is not the only one. Along the route I see many more. 

Just ahead, the plains to the right stretch out pushing the hills yonder. Clumps of trees 🌲 and bushes dot the landscape marking off fertile green farms. The sun ☀️ has warmed up things around, cajoling the shaking out of jackets and out layers of garments. The two coaches are a kilometer ahead allowing us more view of the winding roads. An occasional 🚙 SUV or camper would drive past reminding us of the two way road, else it was just us driving across. 

The gently humming of tires on tarmac, the slight rumble from side to side, the western music, and the now bright sun 🌞 outside lulling one to relax and gently doze. A few smaller cars 🚗 overtake us, stay in sight for a while, then disappear. 

And the coach chugs on. 

We pull up at Te Anau, a small village for a 30m break, grab coffee while we have breakfast we brought alongwith us then back on the coach rolling away past even more lush meadows and greens. The weather is absolutely perfect, warm and 😎 sunny as we start the descent upwards the long winding roads. We pass Kettle lake  earlier.  Lake Te Anau( the curve) lies indolent to our left carved out from a glacier. The scenery is breathtaking and awe inspiring. 

Milford Sound is actually a Fiord and 110 kms away now. Manuka honey 🍯 is what’s famous in New Zealand.  Honey is rated UMF, 5 rating being the best. 20 is for sniffles. 70 is for flu 🤧 but consumed sparsely. Manuka ‘s cousin Canuka is grown here.  I understand Manuka could be used for cuts and wounds. 

The terrain now changes from scrubs to forests. And as we proceed it gets even more dense. And the sun gets shaded out and it starts to cool off in the thickset as the road is covered by trees 🌳 as it embraces each other. 

Soon we pass this stretch and get back to the plains. Pounamu  is a sacred stone. Tapu is a generic term for ‘sacred’ and it’s placed on anything to allow for it to be protected. A tapu can be lifted as well. Tapu is a very real concept in New Zealand. More so, as the culture is pretty intertwined unlike other countries where the indigenous people (the maori) are more integrated into the mainstream. 

We are headed now into thicker forests and surrounded by hills on all sides. Tall alpine trees 🌲 raise their neck up to the mountain sky in greeting. And even above the snow line is visible marking out where snow capped hills would be decked with snow. No trees grow there. 

We now come to Fiordland national Park made up of 14 fiords. Maori ascribe this feature to PIOPIOTAHI,  a god who carved out these fiords carving out 350 islands and who now sits on 😈 devil seat. Once in 4-5 years, seeds from the hill trees drop to the ground. This creates a huge environmental issue: Rodents are a plenty and they feed off the 🦅 birds 🦢 and chicks. 

The coach stops for 5m in a glacier valley (enough time for me to smoke a cigarette 🚬) even as we take a few pictures from scenes shot from Lord of the Rings. The tree lines come down and onto the glacier valley. We are soon approaching the mirror lakes.

We stop for 5m to take pictures. 

We are at latitude 45 degrees south as the coach climbs up knobs flat. Lots of beech 🌳 trees with roots not too deep. Moss and lichen grow wild. Here tree avalanche is a definite threat when wind gusts can blow them off. A tree avalanche starts big and then comes down small, unlike a snow avalanche. It’s takes 300-400 years for those trees to grow back again to cover lost foliage. But for now shrubs stay tenant to lost ground. 

A short comfort break and we are off again. Into roads that once again are covered by thick foliage, the sun ☀️ would occasionally sneak in brightening the road from time to time. We soon approach cascade creek, the last camping ⛺️ ground on the way. Mosses grow below the forest floor and creep up the trees. Lake Gunn (named after Davey John Gunn who rescued a few aviators) is to our left now, as it follows the winding road for a few kilometers.

Soon we come up to the great divide, the place where the road construction began. Hollyford valley begins here and with great foot trails. Mount Christina path lies ahead, a trail surveyed by a student and named after her. Soon we pass Gunn camp. We slow down to take a picture of falls creek. 

We are now on the fault line (Alpine Fault) and ordernarily there is 1-2 earthquakes under 4 rietcher  scale. We are soon approaching monkey fall. Stopped over near a stream to fill up water 💦 bottles, take a few snaps and move on. The taste of the water is cool, fresh and refreshing. Took a picture of local birds 🦅 as we moved on. One can see the ice now almost a few meters high and during summers this place is dressed with multiple waterfalls. 

Milford Sounds is a world heritage site. Shortly, we pass through the Homer tunnel. Water levels here having been steadily rising providing useful insights about what other parts of the world would witness say in next 20-30 years. 

We are now at Tutoko Valley almost close to journey’s end. The moss is quite overgrown and creeping up to the branches of the 🌲 trees. Amazing greens with all sort of textures. 

We would shortly be boarding the ferry ⛴. Arthur’s valley lies to our left. An airport is close by to help tourist take a 45 m flight back. The coach journey has taken over 4 hours including all the breaks in between. 

So here we are at Milford Sound! Ready to head off to pier 5. There’s been so much written about Milford Fiord so I will just allow the pictures below to tell its own tale. 

Hope you had as much fun reading this as I had travelling this path. Cheers. 🙏

How New Zealand was born….

How New Zealand was born….

In the beginning Papa Sky and mama Earth lay close together with their children huddled together between them in darkness. Tane the god of trees and birds finally succeeded in breaking the parents embrace and pushing the sky away from the earth: the rain, the dew, and the mist are the tears that still lament even to the present day. Tawhiri, the wind god went with the father, while the rest of the gods stayed with the mother. Beneath the earth lay the underworld world of po. When the universe was arranged as per their wishes they decided to create mankind. Out of  red soil they shaped the first woman, Tane gave her breath. He mated with her and the dawn maid was born. Tane then took his daughter for wife and another daughter was born. Later she fled to the underworld and remained there when she realized the incestuous relationship. Eventually the Maori Adam was born. 

The first men and hero Maui, thought that Ra ( the sun) moved too fast, so once they (with his brothers) ensnarled him. 

One day when Maui went fishing into unknown waters, after a long struggle he fished the North Island  of New Zealand, Te Ika a Maui – the fish of the Maui – up from the deep seas. At last Maui met his match when he tried killing the great lady of the night in order to secure immortality. For years, his fish lay hidden forgotten in all the mists and storms of the great ocean of Kiwa, hidden from all men.

Carl Rogers on Person-Centered Approach to Counselling

Carl Rogers on Person-Centered Approach to Counselling

His ideas originated in 1940. His work popularly called Rogerian, was personally disliked by the author. He would prefer Person-Centered Approachinstead. 

Roger’s posited that his experience in childhood came from a reaction to his upbringing of being unheard and being judged. He wanted to create an environment where the client felt heard, listened to and cared.

During his childhood, being exposed to his father’s farm, he began to appreciate the need for scientific enquiry and research. 

Paradoxically, his person-centered approach is the exact opposite to science. Initially, he began with Clinical Psychology. As he began to get into treatment interviews, he discovered a few new things: 

For one, he discovered that there were no ‘problem child, just problem parents’, there was a great problem with parents. He discovered working with the mother that she was ‘rejecting’ the child all the time. On deeper enquiry, the mother poured out a case history, quite different to what was shared earlier. He came to the insight that rather than show he had expertise, he should focus on deep listening and understanding the source of the pain. To continue to stay in the process with curiosity.

Soon, Carl Rogers began to articulate a few principles that were new and radical at that time.

Carl posits that the role of a counselor is to be a ‘midwife’ to the personality. He advocated the need for ‘unconditional positive regard’If one can be genuinely understanding, be oneself, listening deeply and well, that’s a deep commitment that the Coach brings to the conversation. if that situation can emerge, not forced, but deeply authentic. This is quite different than say, friendship, where the focus is on the friend. Counselling is a far more intense relationship than friendship: while friendship is valuable it is different to the sharp focus of psychotherapy.  

In group therapy, other members become facilitative as well. 

The process is somewhat the same: individuals revealing data about themselves. Instead of feeling ‘awful’ about revealing, it feels accepted. Groups tend to, given the time that they have, to bring ‘closure’. They try and commit to whatever they can do, in the time available. This social support is hugely helpful. It is to be remembered that age, backgrounds, gender make no difference to effectiveness of groups. Groups have a ‘wisdom’ that emerge naturally. Selection of group is overrated, says Roger.

A goal that most people seek to attain, the good life as described by Rogers is achieved by the person fulfilling certain principles. In his studies Rogers found that there are commonalities among those people who are fully functional. These are:
An acceptance of all experiences including those that are new.
An existential lifestyle, in which each moment is appreciated and lived to its fullest.
A trust level with one’s own decisions.
Increasing freedom of choice
Creativity and adaptability without necessarily conforming.
Reliability and constructiveness in their dealings with others.
A preference for living a rich, full life.


These traits are fluid in their expression with the person being capable of self-actualizing them.

Mere awareness is not enough

Now in my second innings as an Executive Coach working with a recent client, I interrogated the question: Can people really Change? What creates permanent Change?

Here are my reflections:

Mere awareness is not enough, awakening is necessary, followed with cognitive and emotional integration. Now this awareness could come from personal evocation (as in internally located) or it could be on account of an external provocation. Either way, an awareness which seeks greater human connect is what sets off this process.

Mere awareness is not enough.

Mere awareness is not enough. Awareness (cognitive) is not enough. There needs to be an awakening! An awakening in the inner self, that once ignited, has its own movement, its own momentum to growth, with its resultant pulls and pushes. Often the awareness is held in abeyance, suppressed. Not available to the Conscious memory. When confronted with an uncomfortable situation, the protagonist with draws, tightens up, and is even absent to her feelings. She appears confused, lost, immobilised, and unable to make any movement forward. Even a simple task appears frightening, difficult to achieve, and one's confidence is at low ebb. Action is frozen.

Often the ‘Body remembers what the mind forgets’ – JL Moreno. The limbic memory may be a storehouse to repressed memories outside the access of the cortex mind. Using a spectrogram, the facilitator may encourage participant to choose location of how warmed up they might be to one theme or another. How depressed they are: High, Medium or Low, etc. It is to be understood that all emotions which are real are present in the body: it is located. It may be a pain in the chest, a constriction in the throat, etc, but the emotion is present in the body. The split off /withheld pain needs to be articulated. Locating the source of the emotion in the body is the first step.

Accessing the limbic memory

Ask, "If the pain had a voice, what would it say?" This allows bringing awareness to the body. It is necessary to support client complete the interrupted pattern between feeling and thinking and allowing for integration. Through this process Inner dialogue is encouraged, and client is encouraged and empowered to own his internal truth. One should be careful that clients ‘own words’ should be picked: no additional nor interpreted context added. Stay curious to the ‘feeling world’, what comes up, price being paid: intended and unintended. Is there are cyclical pattern to what is coming up – over and over again. A repetitive cycle, clockwork and devoid of any new alternatives. Use of doubling, and auxiliary may be introduced to aid bringing awareness. This would mean client sharing her story, the whole story, the unsaid story, the also said. The interrupted pattern needs to be completed and thought and feeling integrated wholesomely. The event must go beyond the phenomenological to traverse the interpersonal and intra psychic. At some levels, at an intra existential level universal issues such as Death, Freedom, Isolation, and Meaning may need to be dealt with.

Integration

Now this awareness would continue to remain static, dry, if it is merely contained within intellectualism. No wonder self help books, motivational speeches, are not sustainable: it is food fo the mind, intellectually stimulating, but that's all there is. Unless one is able to connect to the emotive level, true awakening is not possible. Again, awakening itself is not enough: it may remain transient and the benefits short-lived. The catharsis, that may follow, may be welcome, but it should be followed by insight and integration.  

Preventing regards, Steve -occurance

Through helping understand anticipatory feelings at the onset, managing the symptoms in the episodic event, and through cognitive re-structuring (from a negative, self-limiting belief to a more self-authoring stance) is change possible. One needs to change the personal narrative of the self. 

Anger - Just Become Aware

Anger is frustrated love. At times, anger grips us uncontrollably. What can we do about it? To begin with let's look at various thoughts offered on this.




1. Osho - managing Anger - If somebody creates anger in you, tell him that you will come back with response in 24 hours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aT_sSY6swY

A Zen student came to Bankei and said: "Master, I have an ungovernable temper -- how can I cure it?"
"Show me this temper," said Bankei, "it sounds fascinating."
"I haven't got it right now," said the student, "so I can't show it to you."
"Well then" said Bankei, "bring it to me when you have it."
"But I can't bring it just when I happen to have it," protested the student. "It arises unexpectedly, and I would surely lose it before I got it to you."
"In that case," said Bankei, "it cannot be part of your true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you -- so it must come into you from the outside. I suggest that whenever it gets into you, you beat yourself with a stick until the temper can't stand it, and runs away.”



First thing: in controlling you repress, in transformation you express. But there is no need to express on somebody else because the "somebody else" is just irrelevant. Next time you feel angry go and run around the house seven times, and after it sit under a tree and watch where the anger has gone. You have not repressed it, you have not controlled it, you have not thrown it on somebody else -- because if you throw it on somebody else a chain is created, because the other is as foolish as you, as unconscious as you. If you throw it on another, and if the other is an enlightened person, there will be no trouble; he will help you to throw and release it and go through a catharsis. But the other is as ignorant as you -- if you throw anger on him he will react. He will throw more anger on you, he is repressed as much as you are. Then there comes a chain: you throw on him, he throws on you, and you both become enemies.


Don't throw it on anybody. It is the same as when you feel like vomiting: you don't go and vomit on somebody. Anger needs a vomit. You go to the bathroom and vomit! It cleanses the whole body -- if you suppress the vomit it will be dangerous, and when you have vomited you will feel fresh, you will feel unburdened, unloaded, good, healthy. Something was wrong in the food that you took and the body rejects it. Don't go on forcing it inside.


Anger is just a mental vomit. Something is wrong that you have taken in and your whole psychic being wants to throw it out, but there is no need to throw it out on somebody. Because people throw it on others, society tells them to control it.


There is no need to throw anger on anybody. You can go to your bathroom, you can go on a long walk -- it means that something is inside that needs fast activity so that it is released. Just do a little jogging and you will feel it is released, or take a pillow and beat the pillow, fight with the pillow, and bite the pillow until your hands and teeth are relaxed. Within a five-minute catharsis you will feel unburdened, and once you know this you will never throw it on anybody, because that is absolutely foolish.


2. Eckhart Tolle - on dealing with anger, resistance and pessimism

Anger is explosive - the ‘pain body’ just be there with it as a Witness.

Don’tChange, Don’t suppress. Just become aware! The awareness will change it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqX5IFKYFWk


3. Sadguru - On how to avoid Anger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAsJvKsd2Xk

Anger is poisoning yourself. Anger is because mind is not taking instructions from you. Anger is happening to you because you are not in command of your faculties. Human consciousness should create situations not the other way around.

4. Buddhism - View on Anger

Anger (including all forms of aversion) is one of the three poisons—the other two are greed (including clinging and attachment) and ignorance—that are the primary causes of the cycle of samsara and rebirth. Purifying ourselves of anger is essential to Buddhist practice. Furthermore, in ​Buddhism, there is no such thing as “righteous” or “justifiable” anger. All anger is a fetter to realization.
The Buddha said, “Conquer anger by non-anger. Conquer evil by good. Conquer miserliness by liberality. Conquer a liar by truthfulness.” (Dhammapada, v. 233)

5. Bhagwad Gita - On Anger

b. From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost one is ruined. —Bhagavad Gita 2.63

There are three gates leading to hell—lust, anger and greed. Every sane man should give these up, for they lead to the degradation of the soul. —Bhagavad Gita 16.21

6. Others:
Seneca thought that anger is a temporary madness, and that even when justified, we should never act on the basis of it because, though "other vices affect our judgment, anger affects our sanity: Others come in mild attacks and grow unnoticed, but men's minds plunge abruptly into anger. … Its intensity is in no way regulated by its origin: For it rises to the greatest heights from the most trivial beginnings.”

SOAR and leverage yourself more!

Today I met an interesting Executive Coach who shared with me an interesting module in how one can help discern one's career as also how to leverage one's leadership strength.

The steps are quite simple really - its called S.O.A.R

1. Situation - describe 3-4 situations you have been in that stand out for you. What was it, the background, the actors involved. In other words, what was the challenge or opportunity?

2. Obstacles - What were some of the constraints or obstacles you've had to face to resolve the issue? How much of it was within your control or outside your control?

3. Action - What actions were available to you? What were the various options? why did you select the option you did? What actions did you finally take?

4. Outcome - What was the eventual outcome? Did the issue get resolved and how well?

Do try this out. List this on a sheet of paper, and you fill find a pattern emerging. Perhaps you will see a distinct style to how you approach challenges and opportunities. If all of these have lead to success, you would be able to glean a leadership style, a competency which stands out for you.

Of course you can do the similar exercise for situations where the outcome has not been great. This would likewise point out to your developmental opportunities.

You can use this tool for others areas too: What about my job, do I like / dislike, etc.

Knowing yourself, and your strengths is a critical tool to leverage your Career. Hopefully, this small post has got you thinking about You.

What lies ahead, just around the corner….

What lies ahead, just around the corner….

It is with tentativeness that I write about the transitions that we are journeying through. Tentative: because so much has been written about it already and would this article just be one more to add to the clutter?

Let me share what I am witnessing:

Emergence of new business models – newer organizations are emerging with low ‘brick and mortar’ presence. Processes are being re-written and transformed rapidly to enable fulfilment at the touch of a few buttons. Viola! need is satisfied. 

Consumer insights – traditional segmentation is giving way: Consumers are not this and that. They are this, that and more. Studying cohorts of consumers and using predictive analysis is now the new ways of target segmentation. 

Re-defining Assets – gone are the days, when assets were visible: towers, buildings, etc. Today most organizational assets are inherent in platforms, ‘ways of working’, agile strategy, etc. Computing power has exponentially increased yet inexpensively allowing us to make breakthroughs, chief of them – breaking codes. Do you recall how Alan Turin cracked the Enigma Code?

Just in time – this was confined to logistics, now directed to the final consumer. Consumers have access to unbelievable SKU’s, and fulfillment and route to gratification is but a few digital clicks away.

New paradigms in design – we now have access to digital prototypes. Make, re-assemble, test, re-test – all done digitally. Imagine the lowering of costs, and ‘speed to market’ on innovative products. 

These are but a sprinkling of change we can see around us, which will only exponentially rise. 

Imperatives for Organisation – to survice this VUCA organisations need to scan the environment continuously, take big bets, anticipate opportunity and create the future, while continuously learning and adapting. Individuals learning is not just enough, the organsiation as a whole will require to be agile and enable an agile strategy. However, most critical it is for leaders to have an agile mindset.

This task cannot be left to HR alone. While HR responds to Business how does business respond to the environment? This requires collective awareness and a call for action. HR must disrupt itself: it must recognize and support the coming together of both the ‘dominant logic’ and the ‘dominant psyche’ of the organization: through that lens ensure all work systems, work processes, information flows, capability mechanisms, and leadership initiatives are ‘inter-connected’ for mutuality and collaboration.

I advocate small and agile squad teams: many squadrons that work seamlessly together: creating the network for new possibilities. 

Leadership pyramids that currently exist, need critical re-examination. 

The first step to Change is Awareness. 

This is Day One

Day One!

17^thSeptember was my last day at work at Diageo, having spent four years supporting a massive transformation, that included re-structuring, new ways of working and building out a high-performance culture.

Although we had a farewell party a few evenings back, on my last day the team assembled together with HR folks from the region on Zoom to say a ‘final goodbye’.

The cake was unwrapped, and it said, ‘Happy Birthday’. (most cakes come for such occasions at office). Someone apologized, but unconscious process was clearly at work: recognizably this was a birthdate for me. A new birth to a new avatar. 

Today 18^thSeptemberis day one! 

Amazon is a 21-year-old company and yet each day is a ‘day one’ experience at work. Someone once asked Jeff Bezos at an all hands what ‘day two’ looks like.

Bezos response, “Day two is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating painful decline. Followed by death.” And that’s why each day at Amazon is always going to be day one.

As the curtain falls on time that marks day one, I have a lot to feel good about. It’s been an amazing day: including a website I flagged off late evening. I have never felt so exhilarated, ever so joyful. Hundreds of messages have poured in from friends and well-wishers and I have been touched. Blessings, goodwill and support have poured in and I have been so humbled. I feel blessed, grateful and truly privileged for the love and affection I have received.  

Day one is about ambition, vision and self-commitment, I imagine. I must remember that Tomorrow never comes. Tomorrow comes as Today. Every tomorrow comes as today. For today is always going to be the first day for what will be the rest of my life. 

For what happened until today is just my history. It cannot influence my geography. The past has no power over me, no influence in how I chose to live my Today. Unless I chose to let it. 

Let me commit to lead my life, One day at a time….one day at a time….

Work is Worship, and the Fountain for happiness

Work is Worship, and the Fountain for happiness

We are all in search for that ever-elusive quest for happiness. 

Several millennia ago our Indian sages posited in the Purusharthas the blueprint for fulfilment that all persons should aim for: the fourfold path of Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. Working with them creates a satisfied, meaningful life at the most holistic level. 

There is scores of literature that point to various aspects to gain happiness. From Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, to Clare Graves, Beck and Ken Wilber postulates on Integral theory which confirms the teleological and evolutionary stages of both moral and cognitive development, that allows for ‘growing up’.

From religion, especially more meditative spiritual practices that allow for self-realization and ‘waking up’, and which allows for the transcendental. Most religion, still get entrenched in archaic, mystical, magical and mythical symbols, and get questioned with ever expanding frontiers of science. 

From literature on EQ/ SQ, that confirms that self-insight is by itself not enough, one needs to add: being sensitive to how one ‘impacts and influences’ others. 

To modern age fads, including power yoga, power foods – all are wishing a slice to fill this insatiable thirst. 

Few have otherwise posited a recent insight I have been exploring: could meaningful work itself be the source of continuous joy? Someone said, ‘The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” Just think, if we took away the occupation of a person (his meaning), what a wretched world it would be!

Few of us realsie that work is worship: how critical it is to be engaged in something that keeps us busy, otherwise we would be busy with our thoughts – either ‘future thoughts of anxiety’ or ‘past thoughts of nostalgia’. 

Happiness is not a search for something, it is a state. Remember, the oft quoted reference to ‘the journey being more exciting than the destination’? Work provides an opportunity to put mind, heart and all the forces within to potentialise.

When there is work to do, health, wealth and relationships follow. By itself these don’t bring happiness. Work does. Keeping the inner currents moving at work, flowing in the moment, being in a meditative state at work, that is the essence of happiness. Even in physical labour, one actually stops thinking. Show me someone who enjoys his work, and you will see ‘samadhi in action’. 

No wonder the great book ever written, The Gita has us remember, ‘focus on the doing, the deserving will follow’. 

To all my readers, Continue to work with zest, and Keep walking!

Indian Psychology

Indian Psychology

Ever wonder why there is scant study of the brain in Indian Psychology? Given such a rich heritage why were seers of truth not building out on how the brain works? There was no need for it. Like a room you entered (the brain) the meditator used it as a launching pad to jump start out into search for consciousness. Why then the need to describe the room? Pointless it seems.

The pursuit of Indian search was for consciousness: the search for absolute reality. All else is a maya. The ‘Sat’ is the ultimate truth: that truth which is never changing, that which is permanence. Chit is an experience of consciousness; the self is a part of the consciousness, yet consciousness is absolute. Ananda, is the attribute of ultimate bliss: the ultimate to which everything dissolves. Creation is born, sustained, evolved, maintained and dissolved in Ananda: that which is life itself.

The eternity of Ananda (bliss) is juxtaposed to Sat (absolute truth) and to Chit (the ultimate consciousness) to confirm that the wholesome pursuit of life is the search for Satchitananda. 

Indian psychology is more concerned with Waking Up to the self realising the ultimate reality. It has discerned that the body is not the self, nor is the mind, the self. That consciousness exists in the waking, dreaming, sleeping and deep stage - all of these are ONE and parts of the Ultimate Brahman. 
Ultimately the self is dissolved and there is no self - just one consciousness. 

Western literature, on the other hand, have sought to research the brain patterns to discern consciousness. It has carefully sought to look at the 'room within'. It is more concerned with the growing up ie the Psychological maturity of the being.

Hence the difference: the west searches the room, the Eastern mind, enters the room and jumps out!